UPDATE - Israel's Mayhem Must Grind to a Halt - Attacks on Children Unprecedented

"it's not a matter of distinction" - Lt. Col. Avital Leibowitz IDF (Referring to Israel's targeting of children)

(SALEM, Ore.) - UPDATE: Advocates of the two Gaza boys targeted and attacked by an Israeli drone-fired missile last week while they played outside of their family home, have visited the families of Mohammed and Ibrahim, 12 and 14 years old, interviewing their mothers and taking some pictures, which will be printed and hung up in Mohammed's room and in Ibrahim's if they are allowed to.

One of the two advocates, Lucia, says they were happy that they can bring these pictures to them, "Mohammed's mother is full of hope, while Ibrahim' mother is very upset. We also saw where the missile fell and hit the children. There is a very deep hole now, and would be interesting to know how deep it is and get the bullet."

The missile was launched very very closely to the hospital, less than 5 meters, which is also against International Humanitarian Law.

Ibrahim's condition has not changed much, which, at this point, is almost good news. "We very much hope that there is some strength left in him to heal," the advocates wrote on Facebook.

Ibrahim's father was understandably not in the best of moods today, according to an advocate visiting the family.

"For Mohammad and his father, on the other hand, the wheelchair that we were finally able to get to them Thursday night seems to have made a huge difference. Yesterday, they spend several hours outside in the hospital garden, and after our visit today, they were again planning to go out. Both yesterday and today, Mohammad's father repeatedly called us excitedly to say how glad both were about being able to go out together."

In addition, the chair - which allows for the back-support to decline up and the support for the legs to be raised up to a lying position - is in addition much easier on Mohammad's back and will hopefully help ease and prevent further bed sores.

Today, they showed Ibrahim's father, Mohammad's father, and Mohammad the pictures of their families on a computer screen. They were all very moved.

"Right now, it seems as if gestures and moments like these make a huge difference."

Levels of violence against children employed by Israel are escalating dramatically, and Israel's leaders refuse to vacate the gutter of inhumanity, even refusing to even talk in realistic terms about the targeting of non-combatant children - instead relying on their "everyone in Gaza has a rocket" theory to justify illegal and immoral acts.

Israel, the so-called democracy of the Middle east, is exhibiting behavior closely matching fascist governments that came before it.

Israel and its defenders attack those who call attention to these violations of human rights by claiming that the reporters are 'antisemitic' which is absolutely untrue.

The criticism of Israel from the Human Rights perspective is not about religion; it is only about inhumanity, violation of international law, and people

The children of Palestine are essentially voiceless in the world forum due to the adherence of western media to Israeli policy.

Months pass without a single Israeli death related to the 63-year old occupation of Palestine, yet routine attacks against the people of Gaza, Palestine's coastal strip of land bordered by Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean, are in a sharp upswing.

I spent much of yesterday and today reporting on the latest developments in Mexico regarding deadly cartel violence, and I frequently cover the 2009 Genocide in Sri Lanka, where a Buddhist majority government tried to eradicate the country's Hindu and Christian Tamils, (another western friendly government that is wrapped around an apartheid philosophy). Yet another country constantly on our radar is Rwanda, where political opposition leaders keep dying when they gain influence. In no case is it personal, we don't always even know the religions associated.

But Israel is the worst when it comes to Human Rights, and that is likely what a little 12-year old boy named Ibrahim Zaza from Gaza, and his cousin Mohammed, who will be 15 in 2 days; suffering with egregious injuries in hospitals as a result of an Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) drone missile attack, would say.

They were playing on the street in front of their house an hour before Iftar during the fast of Ramadan on 19 August 2011, as Israel was sporadically bombing Gaza, according to a new Real News report by Lia Tarachansky in Rehovot, Israel.

In her report, we hear an audio interview with an Israeli spokesperson, who confirms our worst fears - that they lack the capacity to even see the inhumanity that embodies their mission.

Leibiwitz personifies the notion of 'broken record' as she and her cronies endlessly repeat the same lines, the same information that begins with the premise, that 'protecting Israeli lives is the only matter of importance'. That is pretty bold considering that almost 100% of Israel was literally seized and stolen from families who had lived here for hundreds of years, when the European Jews made their post-Holocaust exodus and pilgrimage to Palestine.

Lia Tarachansky explains in her report that an unknown person in an IDF control room kilometers away from the boys, launched a missile from the drone flying over their heads.

The result was devastating. Words cannot express the catastrophe and the anguish for the boys and their family This you will learn when you watch the video below.

After ten days in al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, Ibrahim and his cousin Mohammed were transferred to an Israeli hospital for much needed medical treatment which is unavailable in Gaza. However it is not going well, particularly for Ibrahim, who lost both hands in the missile attack. His father explains that 15 machines are keeping him alive, and that his heart is the only organ functioning on its own, and in that there seems a large dose of irony. The boy has a large hole in a lung and he has remained in a coma ever since the Israeli missile struck him. His legs are turning green from a lack of blood circulation and his dad believes he will lose them also.

Mohammed is conscious and constantly in terrible pain. He has no flesh on his legs or over his abdomen. He suffers from multiple injuries and burns. He grimaces when the blankets covering his injuries are moved, one can only imagine how bad it is. Fortunately doctors have already performed skin grafts to restore his handsome young face.

The families of the Gaza youth are specifically banned from leaving the hospital for any reason, and they arrived here penniless. Adnan Zaza, the father of 12-year old Ibrahim, says the family is in drastic need of financial assistance for basic things: calling cards, food, cigarettes, a rented TV for Mohammed - to get his mind off his pain and his fears, etc. They are expecting a very long stay in the hospital.

Dr. Gabi Weber in Germany is one Human Rights activist watching this story closely. She sent out a message today from a group helping the families, "We are a handful of people in and around Palestine who regularly talk to the families in Gaza or visit the boys and their fathers at the hospital and try to provide them with needed essentials. In order to be able to do that, we would greatly appreciate your help."

Dr. Gabi Weber explains that Mohammad was scheduled to receive surgery today. He has a deep hole in his back because of bed sores, and it seems to have gotten infected. They need to clean the wound out but this morning, the Israeli hospital postponed the surgery to Friday or Saturday. Instead, he is getting a CT scan today. Mohammad urgently needs a special wheelchair which - it turned out - they don't have at the hospital. Those assisting the family say they need to get it from elsewhere.

Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. In addition to his role as a war correspondent, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. Tim spent the winter of 2006/07 covering the war in Afghanistan, and he was in Iraq over the summer of 2008, reporting from the war while embedded with both the U.S. Army and the Marines.

Tim holds awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing, including the Silver Spoke Award by the National Coalition of Motorcyclists (2011), Excellence in Journalism Award by the Oregon Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs (2010), Oregon AP Award for Spot News Photographer of the Year (2004), First-place Electronic Media Award in Spot News, Las Vegas, (1998), Oregon AP Cooperation Award (1991); and several others including the 2005 Red Cross Good Neighborhood Award for reporting. Tim has several years of experience in network affiliate news TV stations, having worked as a reporter and photographer at NBC, ABC and FOX stations in Arizona, Nevada and Oregon. Tim was a member of the National Press Photographer's Association for several years and is a current member of the Orange County Press Club.

Serving the community in very real terms, Salem-News.com is the nation's only truly independent high traffic news Website. As News Editor, Tim among other things, is responsible for publishing the original content of 82 Salem-News.com writers. He reminds viewers that emails are easily missed and urges those trying to reach him, to please send a second email if the first goes unanswered. You can write to Tim at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com

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COLLI September 17, 2011 5:21 am (Pacific time)

This article and Dr. Paul’s response to it are right on the money! The acts committed by Israel far exceed any semblance of defense and must be construed as atrocities. President Obama's failure to condemn these acts and to discontinue support of this rogue nation mark him as nothing more than one more politician feathering his own bed which he has invited an inhumane, child-abusing regime into! The taxpayers of the United States should be outraged that our politicians are providing Israel hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars that ultimately result in the maiming and death of Palestinian children. What is and has been going on between the U.S. and Israel pulls a well-deserved cloak of shame over our country.

Not Blind September 16, 2011 7:08 pm (Pacific time)

You all are f*cking idiots.

Editor: Your words stink of desperation, hatred and ignorance.

Errol Ivan Brereton September 16, 2011 5:32 pm (Pacific time)

This article is so sad, I am from Trinidad and Tobago..I cried on my visits to Dachau,and Bergen Belsen. Dora Bloch from the Entebbe episode was more than I could bear.Why cannot these Talmudic Godless creatures remember their past history?

Matt1234 September 16, 2011 10:33 am (Pacific time)

Maybe if Hamas and the other terrorist stop firing missiles into Israel things could get better. OH and if they hadn't been so dumb as to elect a government that in it's charter calls for the destruction of Israel.

Editor: Well since that whole rocket (read 'unguided fireworks') thing you guys always cry about is 99% overblown perhaps the answer is that they need to fire far more rockets? maybe you could start a fund? At least you wouldn't then be a down in the mud liar. 'Dumb' is attacking the Mavi Marmara and murdering nine people, 'revenge' is your return dividend.

JohnWV September 16, 2011 2:49 am (Pacific time)

Ongoing war against occupied Palestine greatly benefits Israel. The context of war perpetuates enormous American military assistance, abets illegal land confiscation and construction, and defers the Jewish State's reflection on its ruined integrity. Nearly one hundred Palestinians killed for each Jew; just Israel's continuous exercise of the right to defend itself.

JohnWV September 16, 2011 2:44 am (Pacific time)

Israel has made itself into a militant supremacist theocracy/ethnocracy with ICBM nukes; a very real and rapidly increasing threat to itself and to the whole world. A pariah among nations. Somehow, Israel has to be redirected. United States must stand aside. UN and EU can then impose resolution just as involuntary, disruptive and humiliating to Israel as Israel has wreaked upon occupied Palestine for generations. The Jewish State must be made to recognize a Palestine with UN enforced autonomy, eviction of all settlers, true contiguity encompassing Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem together, neither pinched or parceled, and pay punitive reparations.

M. Dennis Paul, Ph.D. September 15, 2011 10:04 pm (Pacific time)

Tim...thank you so much for spreading word of the daily atrocities against children conducted by twisted Israel.. and thank you for presenting this particular case.. one I have been following closely for the past few weeks. It is no secret that Zionism regards anyone other than Jews to be the lowest forms of human life...meant only to have a minimal value as servants to the almighty Jew. These children have, it is clearly shown, no value to Israel. Compounding these brutal criminal acts is the silence of corporate media who find story interest only when an Israeli is harmed. And more.. is the President of the United states who has never uttered a single word in protest (or even the slightest recognition) of these atrocities. So unwilling to lift a finger to provide some hope (one of his famous hypocritical campaign buzz words), he outright refused to address the assassination of an American teen, by the Israeli IOF on the Mavi Marmara last year, when very recently questioned directly by the PM of Turkey. By default, silent acquiescence and direct implication through monetary support and supply of US made weapons, the US and Barack Obama are as guilty of committing these crimes as is Israel. Obama, perhaps, fails to understand that his only worth to Israel is as a lowly servant to Netanyahu and his almighty Jewish criminal consorts. This does not absolve him in any way as he continues his own lust for power. It is blood money that supports his re-election campaign.. the blood of Ibrahim and his cousin Mohammed and of thousands of other innocent children in Palestine (and Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen and all the other countries he has tied the US to in illegal and insane wars). And all in support of the Zionist and neocon campaign to "own" the middle East and Africa. Sociopaths in service to sociopaths. I sincerely hope more people wake up to the fact that Obama is an inhumane asshole attempting to buy his re-election through courting and supporting an equally inhuman, inhumane, insane regime of blood stained power mad assholes. The mayhem MUST stop.. and the murderers MUST be stopped, tried and imprisoned. There must be some justice for Ibrahim and Mohammed.

Tim King: Thank you Professor!

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